A long walk home. by Stephen Slater

Hi Stephen nice painting good planning

Lovely work

This is superb, Stephen. I really like the variety of textures, lines and marks, as well as the lovely composition.

Many thanks everyone for your very kind comments, much appreciated.

Using a matchstick gives a lovely variety to your lines and adds great vivacity to this super sketch. P.S. I tried to use a matchstick once - as recommended by John Hoar - and I got into the most terrible mess - ink everywhere and blotches rather than lines. You obviously are more skilled than me!

I've used sharpened kebab sticks but never a matchstick Stephen, I think that I would find it a bit short. However, you like it and have produced a rather interesting work, and good to see figures going into your composition also.

Many thanks Thea and Alan. I also have a video by John Hoar demonstrating using a sharpened matchstick, I suppose like anything else it's down to practice. By the way Alan, John Hoar reccommends pushing the match into a short length of cane, which I find works well. There are one or two blobs in the tree which I have tried to hide by adding water, I John Hoar and Edward Wesson don't show us the ones that go wrong!

Lovely work Stephen I prefer a strimmer

I like the variety of marks you get by using unconventional instruments to draw with, I sometimes use the long cooks matchsticks sharpened. I like this Stephen because it demonstrates that variety.

Many thanks once again, Dennis and Fiona.

Works so well - I prefer a stick from the hedgerow but this works just as well.

Many thanks once again Michael.

Nice work Stephen . I Used to do a lot of these a long time ago ,